Citizen Conn by Michael Chabon (New Yorker Feb 13 & 20, 2012)

Everything is chaplaincy?

I usually skim or skip the fiction in The New Yorker.  But then I unexpectedly found myself pulled into this piece.  The narrator is a female Rabbi in an assisted living facility (hard to call them homes);  key characters are two men who had been partners in creating sci-fi comics in the 60s and 70s.  The 2nd page yielded this observation by the narrator when offered a cup of tea:

Naturally, I wanted to reply that he ought not to bother, that he should just sit down and rest and let me put the kettle on for him.  But over the years I had seen enough of the assiduous cruelty of children and grandchildren, in suppressing old people's vivid hunger for bother, to know better.

That phrase - assiduous cruelty - arrested me, reflecting a studied non-seeing that belies the notion of "help" that can underlie encounters in pastoral visits.  The truth of that observation changed the story for me - from a piece of fiction to an opportunity to observe how this (fictional) Rabbi interacted with her clients is connecting and offering care.

The partners had suffered a falling out.  One is desperate to make amends, the other denies him that closure.  The fault line in their relationship had likely been there since the beginning, which allows the story to also offer a reflection on what we understand of friendship.  The fault (line) is described at the very end of the story as "our everlasting human cluelessness".  It is so vivid in the story - the inability of one friend to really see the basis for friendship with the other, despite years of knowing each other.  Wow - what a testament to the value of cultivating present moment awareness.